Datensatz

Zusammenfassung

Germany already had a legal framework in place for dealing with infectious diseases before the current COVID-19 pandemic, with the Infection Protection Act (Infektionsschutzgesetz) at its heart. This law enables the country’s health authorities to adopt measures deemed necessary to effectively combat pandemics. Consequently, the authorizations outlined in this law have been used as a legal basis for the measures thus far taken during the COVID-19 pandemic. As the pandemic continued, the law was amended several times to broaden the scope of the measures authorities were allowed to take in response to the situation at hand. A limit to the scope of measures and type of amendments that can be made to the law is provided by the Infection Protection Act itself as well as the German constitution: A survey of the most recent case law would appear to show that this has been considered to be a reliable legislative limit even during these exceptional circumstances. In addition, German data protection laws have been of importance. This became particularly apparent during the design phase of the various coronavirus tracing apps. This report presents the legal framework that Germany has used to fight the pandemic.